Fiber Vs CO2 Lasers

Fiber Vs CO2 Lasers

What’s the ultimate laser for your application – should I choose Fibre laser, also known as Solid State Laser (SSL), or a CO2 laser?

Answer: It depends on the type and thickness of the material you are cutting.

Why?: Due to the rate at which the material absorbs the laser. You need to choose the right laser for your application.

The absorption rate is influenced by the wavelength of the laser and also the angle of incidence.

Different types of lasers have different wavelengths, for example the fibre (SSL) laser’s wavelength is far smaller at 1 micron (on the right) than the CO2 lasers wavelength at 10 micron, shown on the left:

The angle of incidence means, the distance between point at which the laser beam hits the material (or surface), perpendicular (at 90) to the surface, so where it makes a T shape.

The angle of incidence increases (shown as a1 and a2 below) as the material increases in thickness. You can see below that with the thicker material, the orange line is at a greater angle than the blue line on the diagram below.

Which laser type for which application?

Fibre Laser/SSL

Highlights

• Speed – Faster than CO2 lasers in thin materials as the laser can be absorbed quickly slight lead in speed when cutting with Nitrogen (fusion cutting)
• Quality – comparable up to 5mm • Flexibility – low, suitable for materials up to 5mm in thickness
• Cost per part – less than the CO2  laser, up to 5mm in sheet thickness
• Safety – Strict safety precautions must be taken as the laser can pass straight through to the eye’s retina.
• Beam guidance – fibre optics
• Fiber laser source photoelectric conversion efficiency is 25% to 25%, so the power consumption of the machine is very low

CO2 Laser

Highlights

• Speed – Faster than Fibre lasers in materials thicker than 20mm carbon steel, 10mm stainless steel and 8mm aluminium.  as the laser can be absorbed better at higher levels of incidence.
• Quality – Quality is consistent throughout all thicknesses of material
• Flexibility – high, suitable for all material thicknesses
• Costs per part – reduces for materials over 5mm in thickness.
• Safety – CO2 laser light (10µm) is absorbed by the cornea, there is no risk of irreparable damage to the retina.
• Beam guidance – mirror optics.
• Generally  between 2000 w and 4000w power, but because of the photoelectric conversion efficiency is very low, only about 10%, so the power consumption is huge, with laser power of fiber laser cutting machine is increasing, it has a tendency that CO2 lasers cutting machine will be replaced by optical fiber laser cutting machine.

Cutting with Oxygen (flame cutting) – there is no difference in quality or speed shown between the two types of lasers.

Contact : Jason Wang 
Email:xintian102@xtlaser.com
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